ZOO Sponsors

ZOO proudly acknowledge the support of the following sponsors:

In April of 2010, with the help and support of Mr. Shameen Dahalan, of Angel Paintball Sports Asia, ZOO became sponsored by Angel Paintball Sports (APS) to shoot the Angel A1 Fly for all future tournaments. ZOO look forward to shooting arguably one of the finest high-end markers ever designed for tournament paintball. Prior to this the team had always shot a mix of mid-range markers so upgrading to a truly high-end marker has given the players from ZOO the fire power to shoot lanes off the break and the confidence to shoot ball-on-ball ropes of paint at the opposition. We look forward to growing and succeeding with Angel.

Angels like all markers are either loved or hated, they’ve got their fans and their haters however the facts are that the latest model is a culmination of style, performance and reliability and APS have been at the cutting edge of paintball technology since they first brought out the Angel in the late 90’s. Originally created by John Rice the Angels were made to run only on HPA, the first electronic marker to do so. There have been many models, some special editions which are still rare and highly collectible, and I am going to attempt to give you lovely people a little more insight into the history of one of paintballs long standing icons.

Since the first model pre-production Angel V6 in the late 90’s which boasted a very possible 15BPS ROF (though bear in mind the fastest loader available was a revvy 12v – approx 12-14 bps) right through to the present day where the rate of fire is only capped by how fast your loader can feed, Angels have always been designed for performance. Renowned for their ability to shoot the most fragile paint available when other markers wouldn’t look at it, the A1 Fly is no different; in fact I can count the amount of barrel breaks I have had on one hand. Chops on the bolt have been non existent since I got it and I dread to think how many shots are on the clock now.

You could also argue that markers like the Angel forced the development of faster more consistent loaders, as well as the unbelievable amount of electronic markers available today for very little money. Also take into account that a lot of features on the Angels were unheard of in terms of programming. People were sending settings over the internet (yes folks it existed back then!), boards were able to be “flashed” to keep up with the latest developments and wait for it, if you found someone whose angel just shot better than yours, some of the markers allowed you to take their marker settings by way of infra red technology!!

The release of the Angel one in 2006 saw a massive change in size and weight while still retaining the 3 tube design but new barrel threading. It was First Angel to use the OLED display which is now so popular with aftermarket boards for other markers. The Angel One Fly brought the next step in evolution for the “one” platform. Comes with carbon barrel tip, magno valve, fly paper, standard vertical reg adaptor.

Shooting the Joy Fly

Shooting the Angel is a bit different to shooting other markers in that the sound signature is more of a snap than a bang. Someone recently described it to me as all the best of both worlds after shooting it for the first time, with the accuracy and stability of a spool valve with the efficiency and ease of maintenance that makes owning it easy and stress free. Facts and figures wise, you can expect about 1800 shots from a 4500psi fill out of the box. With a bit of tweaking and not too cold a day you will be getting very close indeed to a case of paint off a fill. This is thanks to the new Magno Valve and lightened ram, operating pressure of as low as 45 psi, and a dwell setting of as low as 4.5ms. Mine is currently set up to operate at 50psi, dwell at 5.0ms and it shoots like a dream for me, even on the freezing cold days when other markers just won’t work.

Conclusion

It is as light as anything else out there but feels really well put together, stable when shooting and good consistent strings of paint in ramp mode or straight semi. The A1 Fly will still be a great marker in 5 years time, and will still be slinging paint with the best of them.

There are lots of nice touches to the Angel line, including a 2 year warranty. APS are the only company to offer that on a marker which shows how much faith they have in their product. Parts are readily available, should you manage to break something or need something replaced. You don’t need to upgrade anything on the marker, the board is fully programmable and has a USB connector for downloading the latest software updates. No need to ship your marker off, no need to wait until the next major tourney to get it done. Barrel kit is supplied and is superb, especially with a carbon tip the front it is really very easy to whip round off the break.

"The History of Angel" source http://www.paintballer.ie/features/3659-aps-angel-a1-fly-joy-division.html